After you have installed and initially configured the server, you can create additional portal sites.

The following limits apply to the number of portal sites supported on a server farm:

• If the server farm is not part of a shared services environment, the server farm supports up to 15 portal sites.
• If the server farm provides or uses shared services, the server farm supports up to 100 portal sites. Internet Information Services (IIS) limits the number of Web sites running on one server to 64. To create more than 64 Web sites on a front-end Web server in a server farm that provides or uses shared services, do the following:

  Caution  Incorrectly editing the registry may severely damage your system. Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any valued data on the computer.

  1. On the taskbar, click Start, and then click Run.
  2. Type regedit and then click OK.
  3. In Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP\Parameters.
  4. Right-click Parameters, point to New, and then click DWORD Value. A new DWORD value appears.
  5. Name the DWORD value MaxEndpoints.
  6. Right-click MaxEndpoints, and then click Modify.
  7. In the Value data box, type the number (less than or equal to 100) of Web sites that you want to create. Ensure that Base is specified as Decimal.
  8. Click OK.
  9. Close Registry Editor.
  10. Restart the server.

You can access the Create Portal Site for server_name page from multiple locations:

• On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for server_name page, in the Portal Site and Virtual Server Configuration section, click Create a portal site.
• On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for server_name page, in the Portal Site and Virtual Server Configuration section, click List and manage portal sites. On the Manage Portal Sites page, click Create Portal Site.

Create a portal site

1. On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for server_name page, in the Portal Site and Virtual Server Configuration section, click Create a portal site.
2. On the Create Portal Site for server_name page, in the Portal Creation Options section, click Create a portal.
3. In the Site Name section, in the Name box, type a name for the portal site.

   This name appears at the top of most portal site pages.

4. In the Site URL section, do the following:
   1. In the Virtual server list, click the existing virtual server on this server that will host the portal site.
   2. In the URL box, type the URL that users use to connect to the portal site.

      Note  This is the load-balanced URL, not the local server URL.

      By default, this URL is http://server_name/.

      If you choose a virtual server that has a port number not equal to 80, you will see the port number as part of the URL, e.g., http://server_name:port_number/

5. In the Owner section, do the following:
   1. In the Account name box, type the account name for the portal site owner in the format DOMAIN\user_name.

      The portal site owner manages content and user access.

   2. In the E-mail address box, type the e-mail address for the portal site owner.
6. Click OK.
7. On the Create Portal Site Confirmation for server_name page, click OK to begin creating the portal site.

   Caution  Any custom content that you have added to the virtual server since its creation will be made unavailable once you start creating the portal site.

   The Operation Status page appears.

At the end of successful portal site creation, the Operation Successful page appears. You can then further configure the portal site.

Note  If you create a portal site on an existing virtual server that is stopped, portal creation will succeed, but the portal site will not be accessible. To access the portal site, you must start the virtual server in IIS.